Cannes Film Festival 2013 top picks

May 2013, and the Cannes Festival once again welcomed eclectic film crews to present their movies in front of audiences from all over the world. Ovation, trickery, laughs and tears were omnipresent on the screens for ten days. Due to schedule impossibilities, not all the movies could be seen, but here are our top five features from this year’s selection.

The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza): A beautiful Italian movie and real lesson in cinematography, Paolo Sorrentino’s new feature was a bittersweet gift to Cannes audiences.

A wonderful reflection on love, life, death and friendship, Sorrentino explores regrets and nostalgia while celebrating life anyway. It’s fascinating, funny, sad, ridiculous and always splendid, with brilliant religious and social satire thrown in. Luca Bigazzi’s cinematography embraces Rome, its antique palaces and outrageous villas, compounded by a perfect soundtrack echoing futility and absurdity.

Nebraska: Winner of Best Actor for Bruce Dern, Alexander Payne’s black-and-white movie was one of the most original and touching features of this year’s festival.

Who would have guessed that a black-and-white movie about an old man wanting to go to Nebraska would be so warm and colourful! Lost teeth, family and an air compressor chime with tenderness in this unexpected feature. Alexander Payne brings a droll nostalgia that keeps playing in our hearts well after we return to life in colour.

Seduced and Abandoned: James Toback’s strange movie wasn’t in competition but is a must-be-seen for everyone who loves cinema and wanders about behind the scenes of Cannes Film Festival.

For once the audience is invited to share human feelings with these usually mysterious and artificial stars. Realism is certainly a pervasive feature of the film’s journey in which money reigns and art doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Anyone who loves cinema should see this piece of real life that tastes as bittersweet even hours later.

Fruitvale Station: Presented in the Un Certain Regard selection and competing for the Camera D’Or, Ryan Coogler’s first movie won the Avenir Prize.

All the ingredients of a great movie are present. With interesting creative choices, the director leads this outstanding cast through a clever and human picture. Fruitvale Station is a movie you don’t want to end, and leaves us anticipating Coogler’s return with a new story to tell.

Only God Forgives: Presented in Official Competition to a highly divided audience, Nicolas Winding Refn’s feature  is certainly not traditional, but it certainly is an interesting cinematographic experiment.

The movie’s strength lies in the hypnotic effect of relentless violence depicted in oneiric images, inviting the spectator into a world of philosophical illusions and radical poesy. The director reinvents cinematographic codes, delivering a feature as brutal as it is neutral. He becomes a disturbing artist who says less to convey more.

Liloïe Cazorla

Read more reviews from Cannes Film Festival here.

For further information about the festival, visit their official website here.